Noam Chomsky (1928–): American linguist, philosopher, political activist, author, and lecturer, Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, credited with the creation of the theory of generative grammar.[21]

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) : French philosopher and social theorist famous for his influential analysis of power and discourse. He is best known for his revolutionary philosophical analyses of social institutions such as Discipline and Punish and The History of Sexuality.[37]

A. C. Grayling (1949–): British philosopher and author of, among others, Against All Gods: Six Polemics on Religion and an Essay on Kindness.[38]

David Hume (1711–1776): Scottish philosopher, economist, historian and a key figure in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment.[41]

Corliss Lamont (1902–1995): American humanist and Marxist philosopher, and advocate of various left-wing and civil liberties causes.[42]

Lao-Tse (604 B.C.–523 B.C.): Chinese philosopher and humanist. Often called the father of Taoism. His point of view over religion was skeptic and nontheist. His cosmological and philosophical theories use metaphysical but naturalist concepts, for example Tao, an idea about totality and cosmological chaos, origin of universe, unmaterial but perfectly natural and not supernatural or divine. The original taoist elements was metaphisical but cosmological and non theist. The religious form of taoism was created six centuries after Lao-Tse's death, and not are loyal to original concepts descripted in Lao-Tse's Tao Te King.

David Kellogg Lewis (1941–2001): American philosopher. One of the leading thinkers of the second half of the 20th century.[43]

Peter Lipton (1954–2007): British philosopher, the Hans Rausing Professor and Head of the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University until his unexpected death in November 2007. He was "one of the leading philosophers of science and epistemologists in the world."[44]

Kazimierz Łyszczyński (1634–1689): Polish noble and philosopher, author of a philosophical treatise De non existentia Dei (On the Non-existence of God), condemned to death and executed for atheism.[45]

Harriet Martineau (1802–1876): was an English writer and philosopher, renowned in her day as a controversial journalist, political economist, abolitionist and life-long feminist.[48]

Karl Marx (1818–1883): philosopher, political economist, sociologist, humanist, political theorist and revolutionary. Often called the father of communism, Marx was both a scholar and a political activist.[citation needed]

Jean Meslier (1678–1733): French village Catholic priest who was found, on his death, to have written a book-length philosophical essay, entitled Common Sense but commonly referred to as Meslier's Testament, promoting atheism.[50][51]

Leonard Peikoff (1933–): an Objectivist philosopher, Ayn Rand's legal heir. He is a former professor of philosophy, a former radio talk show host, and founder of the Ayn Rand Institute.[61]

Herman Philipse (1951–): professor of philosophy at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Philipse has written many philosophical works in Dutch, including the widely-read Atheist Manifesto and the Unreasonableness of Religion (Atheistisch manifest & De onredelijkheid van religie.[62]

Bertrand Russell, (1872–1970): British philosopher and mathematician. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950. Though he considered himself an agnostic in a purely philosophical context, he said that the label atheist conveyed a more accurate understanding of his views in a popular context.[66]

George Santayana (1863–1952): Philosopher in the naturalist and pragmatist traditions who called himself a "Catholic atheist."[67][68]